On The Campaign Trail: Dashnaktsutyun
It used to be that pro-opposition journalists constantly referred to attendances at a series of rallies by former president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, as being an indication of a high level of support in the country. Forgetting the fact that estimates for those rallies at anywhere between 20-100,000 were widely off the mark, the main problem with such an approach was forgotten.
That is, assembling what is in reality anywhere between 10-15,000 people, mainly consisting of actual supporters, is not so difficult and in the past two weeks, two other leading candidates for the 19 February presidential election in Armenia not only managed to likely exceed the number for Ter-Petrossian, but also eclipse them in terms spirit as well as by assembling a more diverse crowd made up of all ages and classes.
Last Sunday that was evident at Artur Baghdasarian’s pre-election campaign rally in Liberty Square, and also at yesterday’s meeting held by Vahan Hovannisian and Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D). Despite the impressive showing in terms of rallies, in terms of support in society Baghdasarian narrowly leads Ter-Petrossian with 13.4 percent according to a British Populus poll, while Hovannisian has just 7.6 percent.
Regardless, the ARF-D has shown itself to be better organized than any of the other challengers to the prime minister, Serge Sargsyan, especially when it comes to youth, and more mature in terms of actual campaigning. While Baghdasarian and especially Ter-Petrossian appear hell-bent on antagonizing the situation to the point of making clashes inevitable, Hovannisian has been critical, but also more aware of the need to attract votes by treating the electorate with a certain amount of respect.
Despite it’s previous obsession with seemingly only covering the pre-election campaign of Ter-Petrossian and, to a lesser and more negative extent, Serge Sargsyan, RFE/RL’s English-language web site has more.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) rallied thousands of people in Yerevan on Friday to shore up voter support for its presidential candidate Vahan Hovannisian and urge Armenians to reject their current and former leaders.
Hovannisian, joined by other Dashnaktsutyun leaders, again sought to present himself as a viable alternative to the two mutually hostile camps that have taken the center stage in the Armenian presidential race. He also deplored a weak rule of law and a perceived lack of democracy in Armenia and pledged to “restore constitutional order” if elected president.
“The existing unjust and unfree situation allows the former authorities hiding their sins with that injustice to try to again play with the feelings of our people and base their election campaign on hatred,” Hovannisian, attacking former President Levon Ter-Petrosian and his allies.
“They are being met with the same hatred,” he said, referring to the country’s present leadership. “The behavior of the current authorities, which is the other extreme, contains the same hatred.”
Incidentally, RFE/RL says that many of those in attendance were “bused from outside the capital,” which is true, although it never seems to mention that the same was also true for last week’s Artur Baghdasarian rally. Levon Ter-Petrossian’s Liberty Square rally on 22 January was also made up mainly by supporters from the regions. Again, this unfortunately seems to be apparent bias from RFE/RL albeit dressed up as very sophisticated pro-Ter-Petrosian propaganda.
Anyway, as has already been pointed out time and time again on this blog, playing the numbers game in Liberty Square is not actually representative of support in the capital or actually, the country although RFE/RL ironically started the controversy going by constantly referring to Ter-Petrossian’s rallies from October 2007 as reason to consider him not only the main opposition contender to Sargsyan, but also the likely winner of the 2008 presidential election in Armenia.
Regardless, with candidates such as Hovannisian representing the middle ground between what another candidate, Vazgen Manukian, described as the “lesser of two evils,” i.e. a choice between Ter-Petrossian and Sargsyan, the pre-election campaign period should have favored them. However, with both the pro-opposition, pro-government and international media framing this election between the former and present powers, Hovannisian and others have actually suffered as a result.
This polarization of such extremes has made the situation unbalanced even if many Armenians would like to have a real choice. Instead, the election has boiled down to sometimes reluctant support for either Sargsyan or Ter-Petrossian because of dislike of the other. That said, such a response has favored the prime minister who can also call on administrative resources rather than Ter-Petrossian who is currently in third place in terms of support.
Campaigning in the southern Armavir region on Monday, Hovannisian complained that many Armenians view the upcoming presidential election as a two-horse race between Sarkisian and Ter-Petrosian and could therefore ignore other candidates opposed to both rival camps. He and other Dashnaktsutyun leaders had earlier dismissed suggestions that the ex-president, who had controversially banned their party while in power, is Sarkisian’s main election challenger.
[…]
“Seemingly, the country is developing,” said Hovannisian. “Seemingly the country is moving forward. In reality, there is stagnation.
“Seemingly, there is a development of democracy. A democracy with all its external signs: a parliament, elections, numerous parties, roundtables and conferences of non-governmental organizations, exit polls, opinion polls. In reality, there is an unfree and unjust atmosphere. In reality, our economic development, which is obvious, has nothing in common with ordinary people.”
“The country’s leaders and ordinary people live in two different worlds that are unrelated to each other,” added the Dashnaktsutyun candidate.
In Rustamian’s words, the Armenian authorities are primarily motivated their “reproduction” and neglect the needs and problems of ordinary people. He said only Dashnaktsutyun can simultaneously effect “radical changes” and avert “upheavals” in the country
A number of people in Yerevan have expressed their support for Hovannisian as a more credible alternative to Sargsyan and Ter-Petrossian although with less than two weeks to go until election day it seems unlikely that he can pose a serious challenge to any of the three front-runners without support from Vazgen Manukian and Raffi Hovannisian’s Heritage party. The latter two figures had been negotiating with Vahan Hovannisian, but to no avail.
Anyway, that is especially the case if it is announced later today that Artur Baghdasarian will withdraw from the race to support Ter-Petrossian or vice-versa. Even then, for anyone to pose a serious threat to what looks more and more likely to be a Sargsyan presidency, every opposition candidate needs more than that. Indeed, what they need is backing from almost every single political force opposed to the present government.
- Published:
- 02.09.08 / 1pm by Onnik
- Category:
- Armenia, Armenia Presidential Election 2008, Campaign, Candidates, Democracy, Opinion, Parties, Photojournalism, Rallies, Youth
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